Experiments with fabric.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to be brave and upload one of my old collage designs to Spoonflower.  Knowing absolutely nothing about designing fabric or graphic design or anything like that, it was kind of a gamble for me, waiting to see how my collage would translate on to fabric. 

Guess what?  I liked the result!  So after tearing open that package, I immediately cut into my fabric and started making a little wall quilt:

Not a lot of planning involved here: I used some fabric pieces & scraps that were handy: the black and white pieces are left over from my current work-in-progress and the striped piece at the bottom is a repurposed pillowcase scrap.  The chevron ribbon was a recent purchase from Stitch here in Des Moines.  I had just enough double-fold binding left from my red & black Nancy Drew quilt to bind this little quilt. 

Spoonflower is great place to try your hand at designing and you can also buy other independent artists' designs--as fabric or wallpaper.  How cool is that?  I'm so glad I decided to give it a try and I'm sure I will be doing more Spoonflower-ing in the future.  The cost is reasonable (I got a fat quarter of my fabric with shipping included, for just under eleven dollars) and their turnaround time is pretty quick (my fabric arrived sooner than was promised).  Definitely worth the gamble. 

During the time that I was waiting for my Spoonflower fabric to arrive, I had a bit of fun playing around with the idea of fabric as art--by putting it in a frame:

Yes, typewriter fabric again, and a few charm squares and scraps that were handy.  The frame was a Goodwill find.  The matte was included, I just turned it over and painted it.

It always makes me happy when my experiments yield good results.  Even when they don't, I always learn something in the process and that in itself is valuable. 

Thanks for looking!